


suburban nightmare

by hahnissance



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, WandaVision (TV)
Genre: Gen, in which dottie is arcanna, like she should have been in the first place, not a capital letter in sight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:13:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29892696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hahnissance/pseuds/hahnissance
Summary: a woman, imprisoned inside a body she cannot control, is forced to play the role of a sitcom wife. the queen of the cul-de-sac, she rules her ladies’ group and hosts mixers and trims her rose bushes and everything is perfect. but all the while, the woman (the sorceress) inside is screaming.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	suburban nightmare

it was a routine mission, simple, and almost too easy. the enemy had been dispatched, and the squadron supreme was returning to earth victorious. arcanna thought of her family, of phil and of her children, and how eager she is to see them once again. it’s while she’s lost in her thoughts that something goes wrong. the controls on the ship’s dashboard begin to flash, alarms start to blare, and as arcanna looks out into the depths of space, she can see it. _**the wormhole**_ , pulsing and swirling menacingly as it draws her in, helpless to stop it. she doesn’t have time to think, or call out to the other members of the team, before the ship goes tumbling into the darkness.

she awakens with a gasp in a sepia - toned room; paneled walls and monochrome sheets upon the double bed, a room out of time, like a perfectly preserved picture of the past. this is _wrong_ , she _knows_ it’s wrong, but she can’t figure out why. one tentative look toward her hand proves what she had been dreading. something’s happened, and she doesn’t know what, only that she’s not meant to be here. slowly, she’ll pull back the sheets and leave the room, gently turning the doorknob and venturing out into the hallway. pictures line the walls; one of her and a strange man who she does not recognize, one of her and two young children, many more of the same children.

**𝙸𝙽𝚃. 𝙹𝙾𝙽𝙴𝚂 𝙻𝙸𝚅𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝚁𝙾𝙾𝙼**

the man is sitting in the den, newspaper held aloft and face obscured. sensing her presence, the paper drops and her heart skips a beat as she recognizes him. it’s the man from the picture. he looks at her with a softness that she’s only seen reflected on her own husband’s face. _does he know her? are they something to each other?_

**𝙿𝙷𝙸𝙻**

‘ feeling better, dottie? the girls and i were worried about you. ’ he seems relieved, as if he’d been worrying about her for some time.

 _dottie? the girls?_ her confusion is only marred by her mounting dread. her immediate instinct is to question him, to ask who exactly he was, what’s happened to her, and where are they. but when she opens her mouth, she’s shocked by the words that fall from her lips.

**𝙳𝙾𝚃𝚃𝙸𝙴**

‘ i’m fine, phil, ’ she’ll respond, with a wave of her hands that she’s helpless to stop, ‘ i was just feeling a bit under the weather. ’

and arcanna will stare at her hands in horror, dread churning in her stomach as she comes to a realization. like a puppet on a string, she’s being controlled. and this man may have her husband’s name but this is not her phil; _**this is not her world.**_ she tries to call to her magic, but it doesn’t respond. she can’t summon, or cast, or express the terror she feels as her lips remain stubbornly locked shut. she hears herself announce to her ‘husband’ that she’s going to run a bath, and he makes some quip about women and their beauty routines to the haunting sound of a manufactured laugh track.

**𝙸𝙽𝚃. 𝚄𝙿𝚂𝚃𝙰𝙸𝚁𝚂 𝙱𝙰𝚃𝙷𝚁𝙾𝙾𝙼 (𝙽𝙸𝙶𝙷𝚃)**

locked in the bathroom, arcanna’s body moves itself toward the mirror, and she stares into its depths. her eyes, she realizes, are the only part of her body that she has control over; they shine with tears that would never be shed, they are screaming for help. but she can’t look away, and she’s forced to stare at herself for what feels like hours, until day has turned to night, and the bath water she’d somehow drawn for herself has gone cold.

**𝙼𝙾𝙽𝚃𝙰𝙶𝙴:**

a woman, imprisoned inside a body she cannot control is forced to play the role of a sitcom wife. the queen of the cul-de-sac, she rules her ladies’ group and hosts mixers and trims her rose bushes and everything is _just-so_. but all the while, the woman (the sorceress) inside is screaming. _this is wrong_ , she yells, trapped behind viper-like smiles and and cutting words disguised with saccharine sweetness, _this isn’t who i am, let me out._ but no one can hear her, of course. and so dottie jones continues on with her perfect life, while arcanna watches helplessly from inside her cage.

**𝙴𝚇𝚃. 𝚆𝙴𝚂𝚃𝚅𝙸𝙴𝚆 𝙲𝙾𝚄𝙽𝚃𝚁𝚈 𝙲𝙻𝚄𝙱**

she can feel the witch before she sees her, pulsing with magic the strengths of which ~~dottie~~ arcanna has never felt before. and she knows that this is **her** , the witch who has trapped her here, trapped everyone in this macabre mockery of a 1950s sitcom. wanda maximoff; she’s new in town, but arcanna can’t remember a time when wanda wasn’t in westview. but she _knew_ that wanda was different, and **dottie** hated different. she can hear the man on the radio, calling out for wanda, and arcanna wants to plead with him for help. but her lips are locked shut, and she'll choke on the words she wishes to express.

**𝙰𝚁𝙲𝙰𝙽𝙽𝙰**

‘ who is that? ’ she manages, and each word is a struggle, ‘and who are you? ’

the glass is squeezed tighter and tighter in her hand, until finally it shatters, slicing her palm and staining it with red. it’s the first color she’s seen in this black and white world, and arcanna can’t help but stare in fascination. and the pain, though a shock, is almost a comfort. after countless days of only that dull ache in her mind, she’s finally feeling something real. but as soon as the moment starts, it passes. the laugh track begins anew, and she’s back in her assigned role, trapped just like the rest of this town.

 ~~arcanna~~ ~~dottie~~ ~~arcanna~~ dottie jones, _**housewife supreme**_.

**Author's Note:**

> hope y'all enjoyed! i don't really write fic any more, but i was super invested in the dottie-as-arcanna theory, and just had to write this after i watched the last episode. thanks for reading 💛


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